


Nott too much to ask

by Dirty20 (transarchivist)



Series: Vaguely Interrelated Identity Crisis Widobrave Fic [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Body Image, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Identity Issues, Mutual Pining, coping with change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-02-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22878874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transarchivist/pseuds/Dirty20
Summary: Feelings and uncertainties follow her from body to body, leaving her longing for a time when things were simpler, names were easier, and just being close was enough.Caleb and Nott/Veth have another awkward cuddle a few (days, weeks) after she turns back, and they have to find a way for her to fit that feels right.(Not really a continuation of Last Chance to See, but if you want to read them that way, go for it.)
Relationships: Nott & Caleb Widogast, Nott/Caleb Widogast, Veth Brenatto & Caleb Widogast, Veth Brenatto/Caleb Widogast
Series: Vaguely Interrelated Identity Crisis Widobrave Fic [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1644529
Comments: 1
Kudos: 90





	Nott too much to ask

**Author's Note:**

> Once I was horny for them but now I am Soft (isn’t that always the way?)
> 
> Again, this wasn’t what was gonna come after Last Chance to See and I didn’t write this envisioning them having boned down a few weeks before or anything, but it is what I’ve eventually managed to write.
> 
> CW: weight related body image issues and low self worth, mentions of bullying

It’s very late and whoever she is, she can’t sleep. She tells herself she’s going to make something, acid or arrows or something. But she ignores the powders and flasks and clamps, and hovers in the study outside of Caleb’s room instead. Just standing, for one minute, five, ten, feeling foolish.

Feeling confused. Feeling greedy and still ugly and unwantable. Old habits die hard, harder than her body, apparently. Old habits, old taunts, old insecurities. Asking anything is asking too much. 

Her chest aches with yearning, and it feels good, to yearn in this body. But not complete like she’d imagined she would feel, months ago when this had been a vague dream still. It hasn’t been long, but she’s still not settled into place in either of her lives. Neither have room to contain the full shape of her now. 

She’s braver now. She steels herself and knocks on Caleb’s door. 

“Who is it?” He calls after a moment. Not thick with sleep, but the bed creeks. 

A brief panic.  _Who __is it?_ Nott. Veth. Nobody, she thinks, but shakes the questions that would keep her awake off. “...It’s me.”

She’s gotten a little shorter, but she no longer has the option to make herself small enough, to shrink out of the existence she’s taking too much of. But the door opens to Caleb, who doesn’t wish to see less of her, and who against her every instinct and contrary to every childhood taunt, is glad she’s still there. He’s barefoot in his pyjamas, backlit by dancing lights. Her nightdress is new. Her other clothes no longer fit. 

“Can I come in?” She asks, almost a whisper, like she can take up less audible volume to compensate for the spatial. 

It’s not that she’s fat. It is. It’s not not that. Not just that. It’s that she’s not - Nott - she isn’t his little friend any more. She isn’t outside of Empire society and rules and laws and she’s not some unmarried, unwanted creature who could be his companion on his journey. Not unwanted, no comma. Easier to know than it is to believe. 

She’s Nott. Veth. 

Who is it? 

“We don’t have to do anything,” she says, and blushes because it’s almost an admission that she’d like to. She doesn’t want to. She only... “I just want it to be okay. To be like...”

Like it was. It can’t be. But she would very much like it to feel like it did, back when she’d given up on her old life entirely. No obligation. No aspirations. Just another little assistant, for the road. 

She doesn’t want to be his assistant now. 

She wants him to be warm, to smell like Caleb to fit. 

He nods as she trails off, steps aside, holding the door for her to come inside. 

There she hovers again, uncertain, as he crosses back to his bed. 

The bed is unmade, and Caleb moves to return to it, only looking back when she doesn’t follow. 

“It’s late...” a pause, for a name. He gives her half a pained smile in its stead and jerks his head toward the bed. “Come.”

“Are you sure?” She asks, still hovering, rocking from one foot to the other. 

The question hurts Caleb to hear like it does her to ask, an odd but twinge that twists his little smile into a frown. But he nods, beckoning her to join him as he climbs under the comforter. 

She follows slowly, anxious, embarrassed. The feeling of how-could-anyone-want-me followed her through another body, another life, and it judges her like the misshapen heart tattooed on her finger. Not there anymore. Another lost ring. 

He holds the quilt up for her to join him beneath it and she climbs up, and then doesn’t know where to go.

Should she curl up at the foot of the bed? That would feel stupid. Bizarre. But she doesn’t want her head on the pillow next to his, like they’re... She rubs the place where the tattoo was. Both her hands are small and soft and clawless. 

Caleb bites his lip and she kneels uncomfortably beside him, lost and waiting for him to say something. 

“Vv-“ he starts and cuts himself off. He opens his mouth to speak, but only sighs. He holds his arms out to her, a wordless invitation. 

She leans forward into it, until he closes the gap and pulls her into a hug. 

They shift and adjust until they’re both lying down, her head on his shoulder, chest to chest, her knees drawn up between them, his arm around her, hand warm on her back. 

They’ve lain closer than this to sleep before, her other form curled on his torso, even under his coat, but only when necessitated by the weather, and on a handful of especially desperate nights. When a new friend’s corpse was in the ground not far away, or when her back and shoulder had deep wounds from dragon teeth that could have bitten her in half with just a little more force. 

Perhaps this is one of those desperate nights. Even so, it’s a new position. It takes a little work, repositioning limbs and blankets and gently carving out a new space, unsteady and unsure, where she still fits against his side. 

She’s conscious of her breasts between them, big and soft and mobile, settled against his skin through two thin layers of fabric. She’s conscious of Caleb’s breathing, unusually deep, and she guesses that she even smells different to him. There’s a hitch to it. Bittersweet. She knows he misses her, as much as she’s missed this. She drinks in his scent, grateful to find it unchanged, if a little muted to her new old nose. 

Caleb strokes her hair, her back, her side, familiar touches on an unfamiliar body. Her body is warmer now, and his touch that had felt so hot now feels cool by comparison.She’d known at the time that goblins ran cold, she’d associated that with the fire in Caleb. A not-quite-burn in his skin, like he’d just put down a hot drink, or held his hands an inch too close to the fire. And now it’s gone, an artefact of her old body, not his. She’d accounted for her transforming body changing her, and failed to realise how it might change him. 

It’s hard to relax into his strange and familiar touch, but it does happen. It takes a little longer than usual, but eventually Caleb shuts his eyes, and a few moments later, the dancing lights flicker out, Caleb not noticing to recast them.

Not long after, his slow, even breathing lulls her to sleep. 


End file.
